Friday, January 29, 2010

You know those situations in life where, something just unexpectedly pops out at you at the most unsuspecting moment to make you jump or twitch in fear? I had one of those the other day, where a split second jolt of sheer terror flew through me so fast I almost crapped my pants.

It was a very relaxed midmorning so far and I had some time to kill in-between classes. I figured I had enough time to get a Subway sandwich and then drive back to my class early enough to get a good parking space, where I could sit and enjoy my sandwich in my car before class started. Once I parked my car, I had roughly thirty minutes to chill out and take pleasure in consuming my lunch and that’s exactly what I did. As I mentioned earlier, it was midmorning on a school day and campus was heavily congested with students and somehow, only me, sitting alone in my car, noticed a furry little squirrel climbing on the windshield of the car in front of me. Me being easily amused, I got a kick out of the situation so I took a picture with my phone because that’s not something you see every day. (This would have definitely been a Twitpic, had not been banned) After I took the picture, the squirrel jumped off the car and my thoughts concentrated back on my yummy snack.

A couple of minutes passed and all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, this same squirrel decided to somehow climb onto the roof of my car, without me noticing, and hop down onto my shield of wind as well. All in a split seconds worth of time, I noticed the movement out of the corner of my eye and when I looked up to see what caused the movement; my eyes met the damn animal’s scurrying underside. (Don’t judge me when I say this as I just feel like mentioning this killer squirrel was without a doubt a male)

In that split second, a jolt of terror tore through my body, and immediately left me as a girly squeal as I tried to roll up my window so the damn thing couldn’t get inside to hurt me.

Within my act of flinching out of startling fright, I painfully rammed my knees into the steering wheel column and bumped my head on the roof all in a shower of fresh lettuce as my sandwich I had just been enjoying went airborne.

My breathing was rapid. My heart skipped a beat I will never get back. And worst of all, my sandwich and clean car were completely ruined. This is why I never watch scary movies. Who wants to sit in a dark movie theatre and watch people make a wrong turn into some woods and make very idiotic decisions? It’s just not fun.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

If you had the chance to meet any one person, one human being (no biblical characters), past or present, who would it be? What would you discuss and why would you choose them? I’m talking about getting inside their heads, knowing their intentions and seeing what they're all about. Want to know who I’d choose?

Without a doubt, I would choose Leonardo Da Vinci hands down. Bet you didn’t see that coming. During school, whenever we talked about Da Vinci and his work, I was always intrigued by how someone could dream up theories and concepts years before the technology was even thought of. After half a semester of constantly falling asleep through AP European History in high school, it took a man like Da Vinci to spark my interest and wake me up. I marveled at how someone could envision modern day helicopters hundreds of years before the technology to build them, was even available. He also sketched the Vitruvian Man diagram, a cultural iconic symbol so innovative at the time we still use it today.

I hate that you can’t cite Wikipedia, but according to them Da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, botanist and writer. What I think is most impressive about this list is even through my 19 years of life on this earth I still do not know what a few of those mean. Add in that Da Vinci was doing them in the latter part of the 15th century and I live in the 21st century and I’m even more embarrassed.

I would sit down and ask him about the mysteries surrounding his most famous paintings, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. Few works have been subject to as much scrutiny, study, mythologizing, and parody as The Mona Lisa. I’d ask him the real meaning of the artwork and what he was trying to accomplish by painting it. I think it’s possible that his work has been overanalyzed through the years and therefore unintended symbolisms have been drawn out by people after Da Vinci’s time. It’s impossible to tell and nobody knows, but I’d like to find out.

Leonardo is also revered for his technological ingenuity. I would love to pick his brain and find out how he could construct and visualize designs not even feasible during his time. He conceptualized a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, the double hull and outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Think about all the information, inventions, ideas, predictions, or artworks that he could create with the power of today’s world.

Honorable mention: J.D. Salinger – Thoughts behind my favorite book of all-time “Catcher and the Rye”Mark Twain – Who wouldn’t want to spend a day with Mark Twain?George Washington – Ask for his thoughts on our government today? What is was like founding and writing a government for an entire country.Adolf Hitler – I’d just ask whyAbe Lincoln – I’d ask about the Civil War, slavery, and his time as the PresidentJulius Ceaser – I’m not really familiar with Ceaser’s story but I wanted to choose someone from the Roman Empire times to see what that was all about.

Best advice ever given. Don't let school get in the way of your education.

I am declaring myself the Pete Rose of Twitter because I’ve been banned for life. I still check updates though and still get the feeling I can’t go to sleep until “goodnight” is a trending topic.

Monday is an unpleasant way to spend 14% of your life.

Whats the difference between questionable and probable on an injury list? I've also seen a player's appearance as doubtful.

The earth's like a billion years old. Celebrating every new year is a little redundant to me.

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Why leave me a voicemail? I check my voicemail like once a month. If you need to talk to me, call again. If I want to talk to you, I’ll answer, or at least call you back. And if I call you and you answer the phone with a “Yellow!” instead of “Hello”, there’s a strong possibility I’ll never talk to you again, I’m not joking.

Went to the bowling alley the other day and noticed how the actual “bowling lanes” look perfectly polished and basically brand new, despite people chucking bowling balls down at them every single day. So what’s their secret? How do bowling alleys actually keep their lanes from getting dinks and scratches? All I know is my parents get pissed every time they find a new scratch on our hardwood floors so maybe they need to go to the local bowling alley to find out.

When I still lived at home and it was dinner time, instead of my mother yelling for me to come downstairs she’d call me on my cell phone.

Our family dog is named Rebound (not my idea), there’s got to be some humor in that, right?

Anyone else find that blue girl in Avatar somewhat attractive? I was so baffled by my feelings for her I went and saw the movie again. I've decided she is.

A Texas high school basketball team beat their opponent 170-35. When asked why he didn't pull his starters or stopped pressing, the winning coach responded with, "we were going for 200." My thoughts are that is awesome.

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"I tried to walk into Target, but I missed. Damn."

“The thing about tennis is: No matter how much I play I’ll never be as good as a wall. They’re f**king relentless”-Both of those from Mitch Hedberg

Sunday, January 3, 2010

That Santa Claus is a clever man. This past Christmas he demonstrated why if the whole gift-giving thing didn’t work out, he could have been a starting pitcher for the New York Yankees because he threw me a curve ball that dipped so low even El Hombre couldn’t have seen it (And we Cardinals fans know that just isn’t possible). Not only did Santa deliver me my clone without me noticing for a couple days, he did so in a way unanticipated by all.

It was a gloomy Christmas morning when I realized I didn’t get what I asked for. All I wanted was a clone. Not some headphones, deodorant, or an Xbox game.

The Xbox game was EA’s (Electronic Arts) latest installment of their College Basketball series and I immediately didn’t think nothing of it because, I’ve been receiving that game for years now. What made this year’s special though is that I am actually in the game.

It isn’t the exact present I was asking for but in a way, one could see Santa’s ingenious thinking. A virtual version of me is better than nothing, right?

This is kind of like when I turned 16 and asked my grandma for a car and she deceitfully agreed. It’s not funny now and it wasn’t funny then when on my birthday she got me a Hot Wheels car and thought that would meet my requirements.

Anyway I’ve been playing the game for awhile now and I am in the middle of my lengthy but highly entertaining dynasty with the Fighting Illini. This is a game mode where I am in complete control of all aspects of the team. (I control the roster, game plan, scheduling and even recruiting) The first order of business was to reorder the roster to how I want it to be. As a gamer, I am notoriously known to make horrible use of my bench in sports games, so a flawless and absolute superior starting 5 is crucial to the success of my team. This is why I spent an elongated amount of time analyzing and justifying to myself which players needed to be in the lineup. Before I did anything, the first moves I made were to redshirt Joe, and to cut Alex because he would be transferring soon anyway.

Naturally, since I’m me and me is actually in the game, I had to start no questions asked. The only debate was to what position I would play me at? Given that I had already boosted my ratings to what I believe realistic (by default I’m rated a 74 player, but after some excellent coaching by yours truly, I raised myself to an 85 overall) I could play any position. My finalized starting 5 is 1. Demetri 2. Brandon 3. Mike D. 4. Me 5. Mike T.

My game plan is simple, give the ball to me, every single possession and good things will happen. I am currently averaging 25.5 points, 5 rebounds, and 8 assists per game. Anyone who’s ever played a basketball video game would know that it’s really tough to control rebounds when getting assists is much easier. That’s why I think I confuse the game into making virtual me a very strong candidate for the Player of the Year award. The game recognizes my 25 points and 8 assists, and then they see I’m doing it from the power forward position and it confuses them. Then they must have to think, “Yeah, this kid’s good.”

Since I made myself one of the best players in the nation, I mean game; it’s a pretty logical concept. And since I’m a pretty good team player/coach/gamer I make sure my teammates get their looks too. All the players are averaging over 6 points, Tisdale leading the country with 14 boards a contest, and Brandon and Mike Davis are up there in shooting percentage.

Since it’s a virtually created atmosphere, I can tell when the crowd is pumped up and when the player will make the next shot. That’s why I have Brandon and Mike Davis go stand in the corner and wait till the crowd gets pumped to get them a shot. It works every time and they are both good for at least three 3’s a game. Tisdale just cleans up all of my misses, hence the absurd 14 rebounds a game, and McCamey is usually good for 2 or 3 fast break layups a game as well. The rest is all me slicin’ and dicin’ my way to my average, and dropping dimes like I’m the white Chris Paul. My game plan is pretty much fail proof and is the reason why my current record is 14-1. The one loss came from an accidental simulation of the game at Indiana but oh well, I’ll recover.

My team is well on their way to a Big Ten championship and a NCAA tournament appearance. Barring no simulated injuries or other freak accidents (Ex. losing all saved data) we should be the favorites to win the National title and for me to be Player of the Year and that would make me really happy.